Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Active and a business owned by the firm founded
by US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney have been criticised for failing to
meet UK reporting standards.

Sir Michael Rake, who heads the British Venture Capital Association’s Guidelines Monitoring Group set up five years ago to increase transparency in the private equity industry, singled out the groups for failing to comply with the standards.

BT chairman Sir Michael said since the rules were introduced, and despite areas of progress, more companies had failed to achieve the levels required this year than in 2011.

“It was disappointing to see an increase in the proportion of companies which failed to meet the requirements… [We] will be working with them to ensure their reporting standards improve,” he said.

According to the report, the number of companies owned by private equity firms has risen to 79 this year from 54 in 2007. However, of the 31 companies that were reviewed by the monitoring group, 13pc missed the Walker targets this year, up from just 3pc last year.

Those close to Virgin Active suggested the company would be “Walker compliant” by 2013. Before last year, when CVC bought a 51pc stake in Virgin Active, the gym chain had not needed to sign up to Walker.

Worldpay, bought from Royal Bank of Scotland in 2010 by Bain Capital and Advent, was also criticised.

A spokesman for Advent and Bain said: “BVCA thought that a bit more detail could have been provided around two points but other than that agreed we were in compliance. WorldPay agreed to include this extra detail in the 2012 report which they have already begun work on.”

It is thought the two areas of contention were details about Worldpay’s major supplier arrangements and training.

Sir Michael said: “Since the financial crisis the issue of stakeholder engagement has become an even more urgent priority for business… Overall the quality of reporting reached a similar standard of the FTSE 350 but, as ever, [we] would urge all qualifying companies to aim for best practice even where this exceeds the FTSE 350.”